Through your phone, the voice of another world is channelled. Follow the instructions. Collaborate. Let go.
An immersive, large-scale participatory experience for hundreds of people at once.
In 2017, IDFA DocLab invited Anagram to collaborate with Dutch collective The Smartphone Orchestra to create a new kind of shared mobile experience—one that brings audiences together in real time.
W/O/R/K is a collective, immersive performance exploring what happens when hundreds of people act as one system, guided only by their smartphones.
Blending satire and sincerity, the work draws on the language of corporate team-building and motivational culture — inviting participants to reflect on collaboration, control, and collective purpose in contemporary society.
Using custom software developed by The Smartphone Orchestra, synchronized audio is played across hundreds of devices simultaneously. Participants receive instructions through their own phones, guiding them to move, respond, and sometimes sing together — forming a living, responsive organism.
At once playful and unsettling, W/O/R/K asks:
what does it mean to belong, to comply, and to create together?
Be a cog in a beautiful, harmonious machine.
The Smartphone Orchestra continue to tour the piece internationally, find out more about it here.
